“You did the right thing.”
“Then why does it feel so terrible?”
The older woman’s face softened, and she sighed. “Because you are friends. Because you want everyone to work to your same level. Because sometimes doing the right thing hurts.”
Tressa looked up when Mariah took her by the shoulders. “What’s going to happen now?”
“What I had already decided to do when I first discovered what Soren was doing more than a month ago.”
“You knew? You were testing me?”
Mariah nodded. “I did. And I was. Now that you have told me, I have several things I need to do. Thank you for not letting me down.” She sat at the kitchen table. “But first, we need to talk.”
Fury rose and fell in the space of a heartbeat and the blink of an eye. Fear replaced it. Mariah looked old and sad. Tressa sat on the edge of a stool. “About what?”
“Your future, much to my sorrow.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I know. I didn’t plan to test you, but when the opportunity presented itself, I had to. For a couple of reasons. The first of which was for my own sake. Soren doing what he was doing made me question everything I’d ever taught you apprentices. Had I not imparted the importance of personal integrity? Had I failed?”
Tressa shook her head. “You didn’t fail.”
“I know. With you, I didn’t. With Soren, I did. But he isn’t who we’re talking about now. It’s you. Are you angry with me?”
Tressa blinked and opened her mouth to say “no” then closed it again. After a moment’s thought, she shrugged. “A little. But it also took me weeks to tell you. I’m sorry. You must think the worst of me.” She realized how tired Mariah seemed.
“No. Of course not. Even if you hadn’t told me. However, if you hadn’t, we wouldn’t be having this talk.” Mariah lifted her chin. “Tomorrow afternoon, you are going to go to the Palace to meet with the head chefs—Jala and Enri—and you will go there with a written recommendation from me. I’ve known them for years, and they’ve been looking for a couple of senior apprentices to train to bake for the Palace . . . but every person who works at the Palace must be above reproach. You’ve proven to me that you are.”
“The Palace? Me?”
She smiled. “Of course. Why do you think the Heralds stop here so often? They love your baking. The Palace would benefit from someone like you. For both your skill and your integrity. You rose to the occasion, and I am so proud. I knew there was something special about you when you came back and asked for work. Now, I know you’ll excel at the Palace—personally and professionally.”
Tressa bowed her head. “Thank you. I learned from the best. I am your legacy.”
“You are, and I will miss you . . . but not just yet. Tomorrow, you’ll help me open the shop.”
Tressa smiled. “Yes, ma’am. There are Heralds who can’t do without our cheese biscuits, and we don’t want to let them down.”
A Nursery of Raccoons
Elisabeth Waters
He’s really cute.
The words echoed in Maja’s head, causing her to turn to glare at Stina, the girl who had been making the most comments about cute boys. Fortunately, before Stina noticed the glare, Maja realized the comment had come not through her ears but through her Gift, which meant an animal had made it. The horses they rode and the crows flying overhead didn’t think that way, and the raccoon riding on the front of Maja’s saddle was male. Female raccoon? she wondered, but she decided not to worry about it now. She had more urgent problems. She was on a horse, in charge of a group of people—several of whom probably wouldn’t obey her—in a part of Valdemar she had never seen before, and it was getting dark. Already some of the crows who had been scouting for her had decided to roost for the night. The only bright spot was that she thought they could reach their destination before full dark.
Maja was still wondering just why she was in this mess. She had been perfectly happy living in obscurity in Haven in the Temple of Thenoth, Lord of the Beasts, where her Gift of Animal Mindspeech was both welcome and useful, and her being an introvert who didn’t talk to people much didn’t bother anyone. She was good with animals, got on with the Brethren and the novices, and obeyed the Prior’s orders. She had generally managed to stay out of public view, leaving contact with unfamiliar humans to the more extroverted members of the order. The problem was that now, at age 26, she had become the most senior of the female novices, and the Prior had given her a command that was completely changing her comfortable life.
Lady Magdalena Lindholm, commonly called Lena, had come to live at the Temple when she was ten, and the fact that she had Animal Mindspeech that needed to be trained outweighed her being a highborn heiress. As she got older, however, the balance had shifted, and she had married the previous winter. Being Lena, she had married another highborn novice, and the two of them had left Haven to live on an estate she owned. And, being Lena, she had promptly donated a good-sized chunk of that land to Thenoth’s order so that they could set up another temple there. None of that surprised Maja, but the fact that the Prior had put her in charge of what he called a daughter house had completely stunned her.
So here she was, riding to their new land adjoining Lena’s estate, accompanied by all of the current female novices, several male novices temporarily in the charge of Brother Thomas, who was there to help them get set up before returning to the main Temple at Haven, and—for some reason that nobody had explained to her—a sixteen-year-old boy named Sven-August, who was the son of a wealthy merchant’s widow and lived at the Temple as a fosterling. He didn’t have Animal Mindspeech, but he was very good with birds, so at least he would probably be useful. Lena had written that the estate had a lot of interesting birds.
Maja had been getting encouraging letters from her friend at frequent intervals, and it was clear that Lena was looking forward to having a temple next door. Apparently she was so eager she couldn’t wait for them to arrive.
Maja saw a small party approaching comprised of Lena and several men. The men carried unlit torches, and they didn’t even try to keep up with Lena when her horse surged forward to meet Maja’s. Not bodyguards, then.
“Maja!” Lena’s horse pivoted and dropped into a position right beside Maja’s, matching its pace exactly. Lena leaned over to give her a hug that would have dragged anyone not expecting it out of the saddle. Maja dropped the reins she had been holding for appearance’s sake and hugged her back.
“It’s good to see you, Lena.” She looked at the men, who had pulled aside to the verge. “I hope those aren’t supposed to be guards; they don’t appear able to keep up with you.”
Lena laughed. “No, I just brought them along in case you were farther away than I thought, and we needed to light the road for you. I expected you at least a candlemark ago.”
“That’s because you’re impatient. Have you ever traveled with your own baggage?”
“Only what I could fit in my saddlebags and on a fast packhorse. Anything else can follow at its own pace.” Lena grinned. “As for needing a bodyguard, everyone in this neighborhood knows me, they firmly believe that anyone who tried to harm me would be attacked by every animal in range, and they don’t know how far my range is. I’m safer than I was in my mother’s arms.” She looked around. “It’s a good thing we’re almost home; I can feel the crows settling for the night.” She fell silent for several minutes as their horses walked onward. “I sent a mental picture of the new Temple to all the crows. They can find us in the morning.”
“Thank you,” Maja said. “Not that the crows aren’t perfectly self-sufficient, but I’m not sure I want a trail of them grabbing anything shiny as an introduction to our new neighbors.”
“Don’t worry. I included the ‘crow toys’ in the mental picture I sent.”
Just then they rounded a bend in the road, and the new
Temple came into view. Maja was relieved to find that it looked remarkably like the Temple in Haven. Despite Lena’s best efforts, the Temple and Priory of Thenoth was among the poorest of the many temples in Haven. The walls and buildings were sturdy, of course, because they had to contain animals, but the wood to build and repair them came from wherever they could find—or scavenge—it, so the planks were often different colors until they faded to match the older sections. The robes worn by novices and priests alike were simply made from inexpensive cloth, and the inevitable stains were something everyone lived with. Nobody got a new robe until the fabric was so far gone that it couldn’t be patched any more. The Prior did have a second robe to be worn when he was not working with animals and needed to impress someone rich or influential enough to donate to the Temple, but donations did not go for jeweled shrines or an impressive altar. The first priority was always food for the animals, followed by food for the people, and then the never-ending repairs.
“I think my people did a good job,” Lena was saying happily. “We used the same layout and floor plans for the buildings, so you will all know your way around. Everything is in the same place as in Haven, although the complex is larger. Keven and I thought you might want to bring down some of the bigger animals, given the way the hoof stock is all crowded together in Haven.”
“You’re not fooling me,” Maja teased. “You miss your trip of goats.”
Lena made a face. “Only the fact that they belong to the god stopped me from suggesting goat stew for dinner after what they did to Guildmaster Jurgen’s courtyard.”
“He did send the surviving evergreens to the temple so the goats could finish eating them.”
“‘Finish’ is definitely the right word. You weren’t there when they were knocking his servants down in the slush to get at them.” Lena grimaced. “The good thing about putting a daughter house here is that Keven and I are the only highborn in the area, and we’re not going to get upset by the presence of animals like some of the highborn in Haven do.”
“I’m glad of that.” Maja sighed. “I still can’t understand why the Prior put me in charge here. There are so many of the Brethren who are more qualified.”
They rode through the open gate, which looked exactly like a newer, cleaner version of the one in Haven, and everyone dismounted in the dirt courtyard.
Stina looked around. “Where do we sleep?” she asked. “Do we get better rooms than we had in Haven? We should—after all, we volunteered to come here.”
Lord Thenoth, I’d so much rather deal with animals. “It’s late and almost full dark. Lady Magdalena tells me she duplicated the Temple in Haven, so take the same rooms you had there. For now, dump your packs at the entrance to your dormitories, take the horses to the stables and the other animals to wherever they belong, and make sure they all are comfortable and have food, clean water, and bedding.”
“But—” Stina started to protest, and one of the younger male novices moved to her side.
She doesn’t need allies. Maja quickly cut her off. “Who’s in charge of making supper tonight?”
Brother Magnus lifted a hand. Maja nodded to him and asked, “How long will you need to prepare it?”
“I stocked the pantry,” Lena said helpfully. “You should have everything you need.”
“About a candlemark, then,” he said. He looked at the novice standing next to Stina. “Karl, you’re on the roster with me.”
“But I have to groom and stable my horse,” Karl protested.
“I’ll take him,” one of the girls said. “I’d rather groom an extra horse and sleep on a full stomach.” She smiled, but Karl was still looking at Stina.
“Thank you, Britta,” Maja said pointedly. Karl muttered something she hoped was a thank you and followed Brother Magnus to the kitchen.
“That’s supper sorted,” Maja announced. “Everyone get the animals settled, wash up for supper, and meet in the refectory a candlemark from now.”
As most of the group scattered to their tasks in at least a semblance of obedience, Maja noticed that while Britta had two horses to herself, and the other girls were handling their own, two of the boys were vying to help Stina with her one horse. The shoving and jostling made her realize something.
There was one major difference between the Temple here and the one in Haven.
“Lena, you can feel the Peace of the God in the Temple at Haven, can’t you?”
“So can I, and it isn’t here,” Sven-August interrupted her. He wasn’t moving to care for his horse, but at least he wasn’t a novice sworn to obey her. “This feels like my mother’s house.”
“It does not!” Lena said indignantly. “I’ve been there, and so has Maja. Your mother actually hates animals. This is a newly built temple, and it’s up to all of us to bring the Peace of the God to it. And speaking of your mother, Sven-August, why are you here? I wouldn’t have expected her to permit it.” Sven-August was only sixteen, and his mother still had a legal right to decide what he was allowed to do.
“She was making me crazy, so I told her the Prior was sending a group to your estate, and I wanted to come along and visit you.”
Lena looked at him suspiciously. “Doesn’t she know I’m married now?”
Sven-August looked sheepish. “Uh, no? It’s not as if you had a big wedding with half of Haven invited to it. She’s not interested in what goes on at the Temple—and it’s been years since Father was part of the Council.”
It’s also been years since your father was alive, so Mistress Efanya probably doesn’t hear the Council gossip either. As Lena and Keven had married very quietly at the Temple the morning after they met, notified the King, and promptly left Haven, Maja realized it was quite possible that most people didn’t know Lena was married. Everyone at the Temple, the King and Queen, and the members of his Council; that’s really not a lot of people. I’m sure her rejected suitors are keeping quiet about it—especially Keven’s brother and his father.
“Your mother still hasn’t realized that I love you like the little brother I never had?”
“She keeps hoping you’ll change your mind as I get older. The gap between sixteen and eighteen doesn’t seem as large as the one between thirteen and fifteen. And once we’re both adults . . .”
Lena sighed. “Sven-August, you can explain this to Keven. And go stable your horse. Weren’t you listening to Maja?”
“Uh, right,” Sven-August said. “Sorry, Maja, I’ll do it now. And I’ll take your horse too.” He took both sets of reins and followed the others to the stables.
Lena looked after him and murmured, “Really, Maja?”
Maja shrugged. “The Prior said to bring him, so I brought him.”
“Who else did you bring?” Lena asked.
“I think you know most of them,” Maja said. “Brother Thomas is on loan and will go back to Haven in three moons, but we have Brother Magnus, so we have a priest. The rest are novices: Britta, Mathilda, Nalini, Stina, Anders, Edvin, Hugo, and Karl.”
Lena was obviously running over the list in her mind. “You, Britta, and Nalini—did the Prior send us everyone with Animal Mindspeech?”
“Not everyone,” Maja said. “He still has Arvid, as well as any of the Brethren who have it—though I don’t know if any of the others do have it.”
“Does he have any girls left there?”
“Not that I know of. He seems to have taken the term “daughter house” literally, and it’s not as if girls can take anything more than Perpetual Novice vows—”
“—which don’t stop us from marrying.” Lena had taken those vows herself.
Maja thought Lena’s husband had as well. She was so rattled at the moment that she couldn’t remember. She felt movement by her feet and looked down to see something playing with Lena’s skirt.
Lena, totally unfazed, reached down and scooped the animal into her arms.
“Dexter! How is my favorite raccoon?”
So that’s where he got to. Dexter had been instrumental in persuading Lena to move into the temple, so he probably did hold a special place in her heart.
* * *
* * *
It was the middle of the night when something like a pain in her right arm woke Maja. As she sat up in bed, she realized she couldn’t use her arm. She tried to fight down the panic that was her original reaction and then realized that the panic was (a) still there and (b) not hers. She got out of bed, struggled awkwardly one-handed into her habit, and followed the feeling of panic to the stables.
What she saw there changed her panic to rage. One of the horses was not only still saddled and bridled, but the dangling reins were tangled around its right foreleg. Maja, speaking as calmly as she could to the horse, reached up and removed the bridle from its head. Once the whole assembly was on the ground, she could use her left hand to pull it down and hold it so the horse could free its leg. And, thanks be to Thenoth, once the horse could move its leg, she could use her right arm again. It was sore, but Maja told herself that a sore arm was the very least she deserved for not checking everything before she went to bed herself.
She unsaddled the horse and got it fresh hay and water, plus a ration of grain as an apology. Then she went to work with the grooming brush and mentally reached out to the horse to see who—aside from her, of course—was responsible for leaving him like that.
Anders had been riding him, and it was Anders who had simply put him in a stall—before being distracted by Stina and forgetting to return and care for his horse. :Anders is going to care for all of you tomorrow—or today, whichever it is—and I want you to tell me immediately if he doesn’t do a good job. All right?: The horse nodded, and took another mouthful of grain.
* * *
* * *
Anders started to protest his assignment, but after Maja pointedly explained to him just why she had given him this job, he nodded and went off to the stables. Maja gave out the rest of the morning assignments and was still debating what, if anything, to say to Stina about her part in last night’s shameful neglect, when Stina looked across the courtyard and said, “Who’s that? He’s dreamy!”
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